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sakura's suggestion, I'm going to repost my comment here with a small prelude. I love IJ. When GJ died and LJ started censoring, I was firmly on the IJ bandwagon. I think Squeaky is a good administrator in general and was impressed with his attentiveness. As the site has expanded, however, I feel that communication has diminished. I feel that this is in part because Squeaky is trying to run this site on the basis of a) what time he has to work on it and b) what time the volunteers have. I think he's doing the best he can with what time he has. While this is the sort of approach I would understand from a free website, I feel that offering paid accounts holds a website to a higher standard of quality and customer service. For that reason, as detailed below, I feel there needs to be a reliable support staff paid to deal with bugs and issues much more quickly:
It isn't the responsibility of volunteers to keep the site running. This is a site that I have personally spent hundreds of dollars on, between permanent accounts, rename tokens, and userpics. If an administrator is going to charge those prices, they need to hire a support staff. Period. I moved here from LJ, but the one thing I will say in LJ's favor is that my technical issues were addressed more quickly than three weeks. A lot of people are saying "it's better than GJ." It is, but GJ didn't have the responsibility to its users that a pay site does. I feel that Squeaky has been trying to get by on his free time, with the aid of volunteers, and issues and bugs have gone unresolved because of it. The service needs to be better, period. This isn't any volunteer's fault - they're doing what you can. Volunteers shouldn't have to bear the brunt of it.
Somebody might say "Well, if you don't like the service, leave. " The problem is that I've already bought permanent accounts here. Even if you take the $70 at face value, that means I've paid for at least two more years of service. For that kind of money, I deserve to have my issues and bugs corrected in a timely manner. It bothers me that we haven't even had recent communication about WHEN they're going to be fixed. They should be in the process of BEING fixed. This shouldn't fall on volunteers to fix.
Edit: I understand that business has been priority, but this "business now, bugs later" system does not work if people have paid $70+ for permanent accounts. There needs to be progress on bugs even if business is Squeaky's focus. Even if you only hire a technician to consult and fix bugs a few hours a week, that's something. Some of these bugs haven't been touched for weeks. That's unacceptable IMO for how much is being paid.
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xie_xie_xie :: (no subject) [+10]
March 2024
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Well, I would love to see some paid support staff, and I've never added up how much money I've spent here but it's in the hundreds of dollars. But I'll tell you this: I by no means uphold LJ as the pinnacle of journal sites, but I will say this: I would much prefer getting an acknowledgment that my support request was RECEIVED and an (ultimately fruitless) suggestion, than NO response at all. At least two of my friends submitted support requests three weeks ago and didn't hear a thing back. They would feel a LOT better if someone at least replied to say that they'd been heard. I think you know that's not what I meant. I meant hearing back from a human that acknowledges that they're AWARE of the issue. Even if they can't fix it yet, knowing that someone read your request and intends to work on it is SOMETHING. Even if the bugs are a mystery to Squeaky, at least give us the courtesy of replying back to acknowledge our concerns. Whatever you think about hiring part-time consultants, paying members deserve five seconds of communication after three weeks of silence. At least two of my friends submitted support requests three weeks ago and didn't hear a thing back. I commend you for spending so much energy on it. It upsets me that Squeaky wouldn't enlist someone else's help (I KNOW people would help with that for free) to take over it while you were incapacitated, especially if it was announced. That really bugs me. We have plenty of support volunteers, they just have a life as much as I do. However, we are always looking for more volunteers to help out with the basics. It's as easy as just browsing the board and posting screened responses as you see them. The more you do that, the more recognized and informed you become of the support board, and then it's really easy to get involved with us. Quickreply is being able to reply to a thread of comments. Since the code change, clicking "reply" takes you to a whole new page that shows only the exact comment you're replying to. A lot of people roleplay here and/or reference older posts in non-roleplay threads when they respond. I see... I don't roleplay so I had never thought about that issue before. I've seen people comment on it but I just couldn't figure out what it was! I'll admit it's especially relevant for roleplay, but even now, if I was in the middle of writing this comment to you and needed to look back at something you'd said, I'd have to click back (and either put my in-progress comment somewhere or hope it stayed C/Ped) or open a duplicate of the page. It's more of an inconvenience than a crippling bug, but I rely on that feature so much that I might have waited to buy a permanent account if I'd known it was going to disappear after the code switch. I almost always reply from an email so I have no memory of it being different... I always just get the comment and a reply box. I just went over to an actual journal and did what you describe, and then went to LJ and did it as well, and now, literally for the first time, I see what you're describing! Thanks! |
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